


Shadows

by samsnow



Category: GOT7
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 21:56:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5472083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samsnow/pseuds/samsnow





	Shadows

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inconspicuouslyblue (bluedreaming)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluedreaming/gifts).



"And I wanna come home to you  
But home is just a room full of my safest sounds  
Cause you know that I can't trust myself with my 3AM shadow"  
\- Troye Sivan, 'Talk Me Down'

They have chestnut-flavored ice-cream here. And get this: you can even order chestnut-flavored beer! This place is just too awesome for words. 

“Get that stupid grin off your face, will you? It’s distracting me from my misery.”

“Oh, come on.” Jackson makes a big show of rolling his eyes. Jaebum could definitely use more chestnutty awesomeness in his life. “This gig is ridiculously simple. We’ll be done by eleven – okay, midnight, at the very latest. Easy as pie. Or ice-cream!”

“Jackson, I swear. If you try to shove that disgusting-looking spoon in my face, I might get violent.”

“Shhh,” Jackson coos to his ice-cream, cradling the spoon near his chest. “It’s okay, he didn’t mean that.”

“And people wonder why I’m continually depressed.”

He honestly doesn’t see why Jaebum’s so upset about this. Okay, so, they’re here on holiday, and the last thing they expected or wanted was to be working, but seriously, it’s such a small thing. The people here were going to have a Restorer come from Paris, which would have been tremendously expensive, so when he and Jaebum registered at the town hall, they were begged to accept the job. The lady Jackson had on the phone said she suspected a tiny crack near one of the towers, and the way she described it, he’s 100 % certain Jaebum and he can take care of it in one hour tops. 

That’s right, towers. Because this town was built around a castle. An honest-to-God, drawbridge-bearing, gargoyle-filled, turret-topped castle. And Jaebum and he are sitting on the terrace of a restaurant, with a frikkin’ medieval castle not a hundred feet in front of them, and Jackson thinks he’s going to pull a muscle he’s smiling so much, and his idiot hyung is complaining because one ridiculous hour of work is supposedly ruining his entire holiday. 

“You do realize, don’t you, that with what they’re going to pay us, we’ll be able to stay one more week?” Jaebum lights up considerably at that; he almost smiles, in fact, before he remembers he’s supposed to be miserable and hating Jackson’s guts for the rest of eternity.

“Well, that still doesn’t make up for the fact that you’re a vile traitor,” he mumbles into his glass of red wine, and Jackson lets out an exasperated sigh. Okay, he kind of may have registered the both of us behind Jaebum’s back. Jaebum wanted to be here incognito so that they’d be certain to spend their holidays undisturbed, but not registering is quite a serious breach of conduct when you’re a Restorer, even though the chances of getting caught are very slim. You have to be available at all times in case of trouble. 

Jaebum once said that Jackson had taken on this line of work precisely in the hopes of getting in trouble as frequently as possible, which was rudely insightful of him, but mostly there is the fact that it would seriously suck to be on probation so close to the end of their training. This is their last year, goddamnit, and Jackson intends to be a model student until December when they graduate. He's already caused enough problems for his hyung as it is. 

“Look, if it’s such a pain for you, I’ll do it alone, alright?”

“Don’t be stupid. Like I’d let you near a ward on your own,” Jaebum mutters darkly, crossing his arms, and Jackson can’t help shooting him a grin. 

“I did fine by myself in Bordeaux,” he points out, scraping the last bits of ice-cream off his bowl. Jaebum snorts.

“So your mummy says. And God knows how objective she is about you.” The bite in his tone is entirely negated by the warmth in his eyes.

“A toast!” Jackson cries, raising his glass. “To blatant jealousy, vile treachery, and everything in between!” Jaebum laughs, raising his glass as well. Down the street, the church bells are ringing – it’s already ten pm. All around them, orange lights come alive with the darkening sky, and paint their drinks surreal colors.  
* * *

The lady, who turns out to be of moderate height and even more moderate politeness, is waiting for them in front of the largest tower. There is very little light surrounding this part of the castle, and the tower seems to progressively melt into the night sky the more you tilt your head to admire it. A large stained-glass window sits in its middle, framed on both sides by elaborate carvings. Underneath it is a large indent, as though some giant mythical beast had taken a chomp out of the wall. Jackson wants to ask if it was caused by a catapult projectile, but the lady briskly designates the lower portion of the tower, pointing to the part of the wards she thinks might need repair, then utters a quick good night and hastily walks away.

Jaebum is already inspecting the wall, feeling the stones one by one. He’s standing so still he looks as though he’s trying to turn himself into stone, trying to become one with the wall. There’s a subtle twitch to his left hand, though, small shakes almost imperceptible but resolute, and Jackson knows it won’t be long before he finds the damages. In class, the teachers keep telling them that feeling with your mind is not like feeling with your body; that directly running your hands or eyes along surfaces will not bring any result and that you should bypass all physical senses to get to the “true” vision, the one where the wards will be visible. 

Jaebum, however, always seems so present when he’s Watching. Jackson can almost see all the visions coursing through his veins, shaking him to the core. It’s this, his quiet corporeality, along with his seemingly endless capacity for concentration, that he admires the most about him. 

“I’ve got it,” he says, and guides Jackson to the exact place he was standing in. It takes Jackson a little while to find it; he always struggle with concentration in the beginning. Turn your minds into blank slates, the teachers always say, but his is always so crowded. Sometimes, like tonight, when the thoughts, images and sounds refuse to go away, he has to whisper them, so that they may leave through his breath. Jaebum never comments on it, never makes fun of him for it, and he’s the only one who can watch Jackson do it without making him feel self-conscious. Jackson lets the stream of murmurs run through his lips, words uttered so fast and so close to one another as to form a unified buzz. 

Finally, Jackson can see it. He feels a smile tugging at his lips. He was right; this is going to be over fast. It’s the tiniest thing ever, and he starts working immediately. The trick is to approach it askance, just like you would look a bit to the side in order to see certain stars shine. You just send energy close to the damaged part of the ward, but not-quite-there. It takes a long while for most Restorers to find the exact not-quite-there (NQT) point, and this is the only thing Jackson takes pride in: he usually find it in seconds. The teachers have them do these ridiculously complex exercises in class where they are given mathematical formulas and other nonsense so that they may calculate the coordinates of the NQT, but all Jackson needs is his instinct. He lets his mind wander around the damages until some place feels more intricate, more buoyant, somehow.

Jackson thinks the most helpful lesson he’s ever had was in first year, when they were asked to imagine their reality as a painting, and the wards as the pencil drawing underneath the painting. The wards are not some bubble surrounding the earth, they run along the surface of things – they are the surface of things, of all things. Think about it, one teacher had said. When you want to paint something, first you draw it. Then, you fill in all the lines you’ve drawn with color, with paint. And, in the last stage, you erase the lines. As a Restorer, your job is to make those lines visible again, so that you may repair them where they’re broken. For lines sometimes break, lines around all things: walls, trees, cars, security blankets, crumpled exam papers rolling down the street, cats, dogs, and even people. People’s lines break – that's when their shadows won't behave anymore. 

Jackson can’t believe his luck tonight. He’s barely sent energy to the NQT that the line starts fixing itself, its loosened strands weaving together again at a stunning pace. He knows the damage was small, but still, he’s never finished a job in such a small amount of time. When it’s all over, he sends a triumphant grin to Jaebum, who looks so shocked Jackson has to laugh. 

As they make their way down the road, he casts one last glance back to the tower, and can’t help but frown.

“What is it?” Jaebum asks, slowing down his stride. Jackson sighs – this is going to sound stupid.

“It’s just – the indent. In the tower wall. The one that looks like it was made by a catapult?”

“What about it?”

“Doesn’t it look bigger to you? I mean, bigger than earlier?” he prompts, expecting Jaebum to laugh in his face. Instead, Jaebum just shrugs.

“Not really,” he says, resuming his fast stride down the road. They walk in silence all the way back to the hotel, and this is so unlike Jaebum that Jackson starts to wonder if he’s angry at him or something. It’s only when they get to the entrance and Jackson drops his keys to the ground that he realizes his own shadow is stretching long and lean towards the door, and Jaebum’s, short and compact, is going in the other direction.


End file.
